Clause 15
Planning Bill
12:30 pm
Jacqui Lait (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Beckenham, Conservative)
We are not going to object to the clause, but this is a useful opportunity to get some clarification on one of my favourite or pet subjects—Scotland. Will the Minister clarify how paragraph 15(1)(d), which reads
“partly in England and partly in Scotland”
relates to clause 187, which is on the extent of the Bill, and which says that the Bill extends
“to England and Wales only”?
While he is thinking about that, perhaps I could ask him to allay my concern about the consultation with Scotland on difficult decisions. What consideration have the Government given to situations in which Scotland, under its devolved structure, has a reverse impact on England and does not provide, thereby putting extra demand on England? Hazardous waste is a particularly controversial example. How will the Government and the IPC deal with applications within England to deal with areas in which Scotland is not providing sufficient capacity?
Scotland has historically provided much of the UK’s nuclear electricity. Hunterston, Torness and Chapelcross have been key in that. Chapelcross is being decommissioned. Hunterston and Torness have planning permission or presumption of planning for more sites, as does Chapelcross. But the previous Labour-Liberal Administration set their face against building any new nuclear power stations, as has the new Scottish National party Administration. Therefore the pressure is on England to provide for the UK in a way that historically it did not have to do. This is going slightly wide of the matter under discussion, but it gives the Minister the chance to answer my question about clause 187 and to tell us how the Government are approaching the issue of England having to provide because Scotland is not doing its fair share.